Google tests Intel Haswell-powered Chromebook

Trent Nouveau, 22nd October 2016

Google is reportedly testing a new Chromebook powered by Intel's x86 Haswell SoC.

For some strange reason, the new device has been nicknamed "Slippy," at least according to a few lines of Chromium code spotted by one Dinsan Francis.

Additional specs are few and far between, although we do know the device, if it ever comes to market, also features an SD card slot along with two USB 3.0 ports.

As previously discussed on TG Daily, Haswell is the long-awaited successor to Intel's Sandy and Ivy Bridge processors.

The SoC is fabbed using an 22nm process, with Santa Clara expected to begin officially shipping Haswell CPUs this June, which just happens to coincide with Google's annual I/O conference.

As you may recall, reports that Google was testing a Haswell-powered notebook first surfaced in March when ZDNet confirmed that Mountain View dev Stefan Reinauer had committed Haswell-related code changes to Coreboot, a fast boot open source BIOS replacement for Linux systems (Google Chrome OS vendor support was added to Coreboot last year).

Indeed, Reinauer's new Haswell-related code commits last week included haswell: use dynamic cbmem and haswell boards: support added chromeos function.

Intel claims that its next-gen 22nm chip - targeted at mobile devices - will offer double the battery life compared to devices using its third generation Ivy Bridge processors.

If so, Chromebooks powered by Haswell will likely edge fairly close to the extended battery life boasted by Samsung's $250 ARM-based Chromebook.